The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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the nature of the differentiation required. “…Instructional delivery must be differentiated in pace, amount of review and practice, and organization of content presentation” (Rogers, 2007). Rogers backs this up with data from Start (1995) with intellectually gifted students where it was found that a child two standard deviations above average (moderately gifted) learns eight times faster than a child with an intellectual ability two standard deviations below. The student who is highly gifted needs more individual attention perhaps by providing tutoring; acceleration, or planning individualised studies and projects than the mildly or moderately gifted (Gallagher, 2000). However, schools are not consistently able to distinguish highly gifted from extraordinarily gifted students when they assess academic ability. Voices of students who are gifted Voice is “the focus on the design, facilitation and improvement of learning” (Mitra, 2004, p. 4 in Manefield et al., 2004). Student voice has “transformative potential” to enhance students’ own learning and school improvement through “essential first hand evidence” (Flutter and Ruddock, 2004 in Harland, p5.) ‘However, it is not enough to simply listen to student voice. Educators have an ethical imperative to do something with students, and that is why meaningful student involvement is vital to school improvement’ (Fletcher, 2003). Dillon adds that we do not always recognize the dynamic nature of children’s identities (Aitken, Lund & Korjholt, 2007). ”The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself” (bell hooks, 1994, p.11 in Cruddas, p. 62). The social constructivist approach, which supports the inclusive schools philosophy, also reflects the gradual changes in education for identifying and providing for gifted students (Renzulli & Purcell, 1996; Gallagher, 2000; Lowe, 2002; and Brown et al., 2005 in Smith, 2006, p. 11). This qualitative paradigm now calls for a mainstream focus on provision for and identification of “gifted behaviours” because the regular classroom is where most students are. Given that giftedness may show itself at any time in a given child’s life the inclusive mixed ability classroom is an obviously important focus point of identification and provision for all students (Grub, 2008). An individual’s potential cannot be predetermined (Dweck, 2000 in Hertzog, 2003, p. 12) so identification therefore is not an end in itself but its purpose is to continuously provide appropriate educational experiences for all children who display giftedness and ability through challenging activities (Freeman, 1998; Sizmur, 1991; Teare, 1997). Identification should be approached as an opportunity for educators to employ a range of resources to develop a picture of an individual student’s educational strengths, weaknesses and needs (Campbell et al., 2005, p. 7). So, rather than relying on an individual IQ score (Renzulli, 1998) assessment now is usually dynamic, using multiple sources (Passow, 1984 in Grubb, 2008) and contextualized due to the multicultural and diverse nature of the learners. There is no single, universal definition of giftedness (Fahlman, 2000; Marland & Gardner in Yewchuk, 1999) and no single method of assessment. However, as intellectual giftedness can be described in degrees from mild to profound it is important to acknowledge the link between levels of intellectual giftedness and the cognitive differences which then impact on learning in the mixed ability classroom. Also the more different to the average in terms of intellectual ability the person is, the rarer the ability becomes in term of a peer group. Are their chronological peers their intellectual peers? (Gross in Smith, 2006, p.134). Individuals who are gifted may show various preference in learning styles, be unidentified, underachievers (Reis & McCoach, 2000, Winebrenner, 2001) at risk of exclusion, academically successful in only one specific area, have disabilities or be multi talented and fit anywhere along the intellectual level continuum. This again is why the individual’s voice is very important. This is not a homogenous group. The gap between what is ideal regarding inclusion and what is experienced in the classroom is said to be improved through a personal approach to dialogue and partnership (Davalos and Griffin, 1999) where teachers’ and students’ roles shift and develop skills to “articulate what is important, insightful or relevant” (Fielding & Ruddock, 2002, in Manefield, 2007). Current international research is beginning to suggest that student voice, when it involves students having a genuine say in their learning, has served as a catalyst for change in schools (Manefield et al., 2007, p. 41). Increasing participation and involving all students in planning and decision-making is consistent with the inclusion principle (Thomas et al. in Cruddas, 2001, p. 63). Teachers must first listen to students in order to engage them in constructing their own learning (Manefield et al., 2007, p. 16) and fielding notes that this requires a radical collegiality and blurring in roles to invite enquiry with students as co researchers (Fielding, 2004; Jackson, 2005, in Manefield, 2007, p. 5). Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011. 123
The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children The research literature on the individual gifted student’s voice in relation to teaching and learning is rare (Gallagher, Harradine & Coleman, 1997, in Knight & Becker, 2000). According to Tannenbaum (1993 in Smith, 2006, p. 150) there is a “love-hate relationship between society and the construct of giftedness”. This supports the view that “the gifted” are a marginalised group of individuals and as such are often invisible or unheard (Nieto, 1994, in Corbett & Wilson, 1995, p. 396). This may partly be by the nature of their giftedness which can result in them being more vulnerable to criticism and hostility from teachers and others (Gross, 1993, in Kirby & Townsend, 2002, Yewchuk, 1999, p. 37) and therefore not sought out for interviews, as well as perhaps having articulate and perhaps critical views of their teachers and their teaching. Individuals who are gifted can be “hiding” in classrooms. For example, extremely gifted children will often conform for peer acceptance and so conceal their special interests or abilities in class (Gross, 2000). It would be interesting to see if speaking out would be too risky for some or if in fact the opportunity to speak up safely would help to identify needs more accurately in students who are intellectually gifted (Gross, 1989). Greene (1994 in Hertzog, 2003, p. 531) claims qualitative studies “give voice to the normally silenced and can poignantly illuminate what was typically masked”. What the research says the students say Chessman (2007) notes that an important consideration is the match between task complexity and the level of student skill. This is the concept of “flow” or optimal engagement (Csikszentmihalyi, 1987 in Van Tassel-Baska, 1993, p. 366). In 1993, Csikszentmihalyi conducted a study in which the outcomes showed that when tasks were too simple or too difficult the students disengaged (Tomlinson et. al, 2003, p. 9). Tasks that are too easy cause boredom and tasks that are too difficult cause frustration (National Research Council, 1999, p. 49 in Tomlinson et al., 2001). Furthermore, Csikszentmihalyi’s (1978) research on intrinsic motivation suggested that the central requirement is useful feedback to the person, demonstrating meaningful challenges are being met through their actions (Hoekman et.al, 1999). Another study on perfectionsim in students who are gifted showed that overall, the majority of the participants, regardless of their type of perfectionism, indicated a decrease in their perfectionism as a result of a rigorous academic environment (Speirs Neumeister, et al., 2007). Learners who are gifted “are often intellectually capable of understanding adult situations but remain powerless to create effective change” (Yewchuk, 1999). Yet, they want leadership activities that are meaningful, and some real responsibility (Wade & Putnam, 1995 in Manefield et al., 2007, p. 9). Authentic decision making opportunities for all students, means a constructivist approach to learning (Bruner, 1996 in Manefield et al., 2007, p. 4) where active conversations engage students in designing and taking responsibility for their own learning. Recent research confirms that students need the opportunity to clarify feelings beliefs and experiences as well as inform teachers of their learning needs (Casey, 1996; Elbaz, 1993, in Knight and Becker, 2000). Without the student making the choice to learn, no learning can occur (Schultz, 2003). Vialle and colleagues (2001) found that students wanted pretests, compacting, choices, and student centered learning, enrichment/ extension and support, but what teachers provided was teacher directed learning. In this study, there was a direct contrast between preferences of students who are gifted and teacher provision and the students reported that even once accelerated there was no differentiation and so was more of an administrative than pedagogical solution for them. In other examples, when the curriculum was challenging there were options and student voice in design and delivery of programs (Vialle et al., 2001). This study concluded the absolute importance of attending to individual differences including social and emotional needs. Challenge and choice were concerns listed by students in the Gentry et al. (2002) study. Hertzog (2003) reported that most students studied expressed a frustration about being part of a “gifted group”, as if it was a type of label. This was particularly true for students who were placed in separate classrooms within a school, but still attended general classes for some periods of the day. Highly able students may suffer from the “sucker effect”, where they feel exploited as tutors of the less able, held back and less productive (Robinson, 1990; Ross & Smyth, 1995 in Campbell et al., 2005). Adams-Byers, J.; Squillers Whitsell, S.; Moon, S.M. (2004) found in their study that gifted and talented students differ in their desire to participate in mixed-ability groups, and concluded that a school should include a broad range of grouping options for gifted and talented students. Are students who possess an ability level far from the mean more inclined to prefer homogeneous grouping than students whose ability levels are closer to that of the average student and does this have more to do with personality than with levels of giftedness (Adams-Byers et al., 2004)? 124 Gifted and Talented International – 26(1), August, 2011; and 26(2), December, 2011.
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Examining Opinions and Challenging
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Finally, many thanks go to Kevin La
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Name Full-time Gifted Class Gail* A
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Table 4: The results of the (2x2) t
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undertaking the unit, with many com
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Figure 1: Pre & post scores for ite
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(1 st , 3 rd & 4 th were negatively
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egulated and possible with almost n
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This article argues that competitio
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The Journal of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

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